Riiiiight. The EPA doesn’t actually exist. It’s just a product of Lewis Carroll’s vivid imagination.
See, I did not know that.
I also didn’t know that smoking was actually a necessary part of our economy. The things you learn on the internets! I’m so glad I have the Dope to learn me these tricksy and complicatious things.
Do you really not get this? Everything you cited are things that are exclusively within the control of the worker himself, except for “underpaid”. And there already are laws against underpaying employees. Can you not understand the difference?
If internal combustion engines were banned, you would soon die of starvation. Are you going to die from a smoking ban? There already are laws in place to try to minimize smog emissions. I’d be all in favor of strengthening those laws, but powerful industries have powerful lobbyists, so it’s difficult to do. An outright ban would be impossible, because we would all die.
OK. My point is that people knowingly and voluntarily, for pleasure, within their own homes, subject themselves to a cocktail of dangerous chemicals which together form the concotion ‘tobacco smoke.’ People do not, in any large numbers, suck down 100% benzene for pleasure. That’s the difference. If you cannot see there is a difference between a person doing something willingly at home, and not minding it at work, to being exposed to something that gives them no benefit without their choice, then I think you are being deliberately obtuse.
Nice bit of selective editing on your part there, attempting to make it look like I was asserting something as an absolute truth without providing figures to back it up. In the part you chose to eliminate, to save space, I said that it was a total guess. You are right, there aren’t any surveys I have seen done on this. Do you deny it is true though? It certainly was during the long time I worked as a bartender.
This is ridiculous. I have answered this earlier, but here goes again. I support allowing people to take extra risks when it is truly voluntary. There is pretty incredible evidence that people voluntarily chose to accept the risk of tobacco smoke. That evidence is the fact lots of people smoke. I see no evidence that people voluntarily would work in unsafe mining conditions if there were safe mining jobs available. It may be certain people would, but I think the risk of people being forced by economic situation to work there is unacceptably high. If there were hundreds, possibly thousands of individual mines within close distance of a city, then that system might be more acceptable. And I think if people were presented with 999 safer pits, and one unsafe pit, the unsafe pit wouldn’t have workers.
On the other hand, with lots and lots of bars around, I think it more than likely that even if the pay were exactly the same, you would find bartenders more than happy to work in smoking bars. Once again, I apologize for not having studies to back this up, and say simply that this is an opinion formed from conversations with bartenders who find the idea that they don’t actually know whether they want to work somewhere that allows them to smoke pretty insulting.
If for one moment I thought there was not a way to make this a voluntary decision, I would support the bans. But I get kind of tired of seeing people trumpeting the rights of workers to justify their own personal preferences, without actually considering what the workers they are championing would want. Not saying this category includes you, of course.
Sure, but what if I sign a paper that says I am willing to work with 2nd hand smoke and take full responsiblity for said effects of same. Are you saying I am not free to do so? So, I ask again, why stop there?
This is, of course, absolutely correct. The fact I don’t agree with you on a smoking ban in bars doesn’t mean I am willing to drink the Koolaid and come out with the sort of hysterical garbage that some people are to oppose this. It doesn’t strengthen the case for those of us in favor of a limited, truly voluntary (for all concerned) solution when people make such ridiculous analogies.
No, I’m afraid I cannot understand the difference. Can you understand “hyperbole”?
Yes, I can. Can you? Hyperbole is an intentional exaggeration for effect, as in “this bag weighs a ton” or “this is taking forever”. What you wrote is not hyperbole. You are suggesting that two dissimilar concepts (things within ones own control vs. things in the control of others) are the same. That’s not an exaggeration, it’s simply wrong.
Cite?
Why stop there? Because it’s the workplace. The workplace is not the rest of your life. That’s why it’s not called “The rest of your lifeplace.”
There are many aspects to work that do not apply to the rest of your life. In my life, I can be a racist and refuse to associate with a black person. In my workplace, I can’t refuse to hire a black person. In my life, I can plaster my room with sexually explicit images. In my workplace, I would be fired for doing so.
If there are no repercussions for employers, they will use you and spit you out. They will get you to “voluntarily” sign all sorts of documents saying they are allowed to use you and spit you out. Your arguments are the same arguments that people use to defend slave wages, lack of safety equipment, child labor, etc. Someone somewhere is desperate enough to do it.
These threads honestly puzzle me. Do people think that employees go along willingly with other workplace safety rules? They don’t. Employees try to get around lockout/tagout. They take the shields off saws. They bend or break the safety features from a drill press. They put their goggles on the tops of their heads. They hang their earplugs around their necks until a supervisor comes in the room. They smoke in the paint booth. They hang a spent fire extinguisher back on the hook. They disconnect the back up beeper from the tow motor. They sabotage, lie, cheat, and hide.
People in these threads act like smoking is the only time workers don’t get to do what they please, like smokers are some terribly persecuted class of worker. Well, I’ll repeat it. Smoking has been an exception to workplace safety rules–a political exception. Smoking isn’t more regulated than other hazards. It’s much much less regulated. A workplace hasn’t allowed to expose you to the levels of CO that are found in cigarettes for years. It takes a law passed by popular vote just to get these rules to apply to smoking when they should have applied already.
And I’m in Ohio. Over half of the employees at my workplace are smokers. This law is an absolute pain in the ass, but you know what? So are all of the other safety laws and rules we have to follow.
You see the spot where you typed three dots? There were words there. I realize the words sounded like white noise in your brain, but if you had a functioning cerebrum you would have seen an explanation of what hyperbole is and why you are using the term incorrectly. 
You really don’t get out much do you?
But, this is pointless, you won. I cannot smoke in Ohio where I used to. Enjoy your smoke-free environs. Good luck in your pursuits. May God grant you a Merry christmas and a Happy New year. Please consider paying your membership fee as your contribution to this board would be most welcome.
I look forward to our future conversations.
If someone does not see the difference between their own habit at home, and the added effect of secondhand exposure to the habits of hundreds or thousands of people in an enclosed space over the course of a workshift, I’d say that goes obtuse one better.
Well no - your quoted use of phrases such as “I am betting” and “I think if” makes it clear that you are pulling conclusions out of your ass.
If you go back and look at the history of laws enacted to protect workers, from child labor laws to various health and safety regulations, you will find plenty of dire warnings about how jobs were being jeopardized, wages lost etc., and an amazingly high percentage of these false alarms came from the businesses that stood to lose (or thought they would lose) profits.
Interestingly, in the case of Ohio’s public smoking initiative, I never heard of any protests from waitstaff or bartenders. The loud opponents of the ban were big tobacco companies and elements of the bar and restaurant industry. So excuse me if I don’t buy this as a “workers’ rights” issue.
A bunch of rolleyes still isn’t an argument. It’s a little harder to grasp, but restating accusations like “you misrepresented my argument” isn’t itself the same thing as MAKING that argument, and supporting it.
You whined about not having a choice because no one would offer you the terms for trade that you wanted. This was your given reason for why the law should be able force all others to only trade in the way you desire. That certainly sounds like a whiny bitch who thinks he’s owed.
You’re real good at accusing me f being off-topic or mangling your words, but you never manage to follow up and show that I have, let alone try to refute my arguments.
Irrelevant. Your contention was that because no one offered you want you wanted, this somehow meant you didn’t have a choice. Well, you do: the choice to do whatever you want on your own property. If your choice is to look for a bar that caters to your exact specifications, you have a choice to search that out, and if you can’t find anyone willing to provide it, then provide it yourself.
Your alternative, however, is apparently to take the choice of others away from them and legally force them to cater to what you want.
Such a moron. Yes: it’s the same basic legal theory, sorry. It’s the idea that what you desire should be mandatory for all: even if they practice it on their own time, not impacting you in the least.
Why should clean air laws apply to private companies if the employees all agree that they would rather have that job at that pay than clean air and less pay? If a private company wants to belch unfiltered coal smoke rich in radioactive isotopes (Yes, coal smoke normally is radioactive to a certain extent.) that’s nobody’s business but the people who work there. Period.
Anyone who disagrees with me is a simpering whiner who would vote in Stalin Pol Hitler if it meant inconveniencing a few smokers.
You guys are really bowling me over with your well-reasoned arguments.
I’m not going to support a strawman argument that I never made. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Nope. I have what I want. YOU are whining.
Your drivel is growing tiresome, Apos.
Damn straight - and if you don’t like it, get your own planet. 
Re: Columbus’ bars loss of revenue under a partial ban
Like I said, I don’t have much of a dog in this fight, so I didn’t really dig deep for information. Besides, this isn’t a GD type cite-fest. I googled the text of the law in Ohio and a couple of pages that gave the gist of what happened there. There was a brief mention here and I remember similar reports of initial losses when some jurisdictions in California went smoke-free in the late 90s before the state followed in 1998.
Your link illustrates the problem with these anecdotal reports. Studies relying on actual revenue figures consistently show no significant changes in income (or an increase) after public smoking bans go into effect - as in New York, El Paso and other cities. From the El Paso study:
"…no statistically significant changes in restaurant and bar revenues occurred after the smoking ban took effect. "
The alarms about lost revenue seem to be based more on fear than reality.
Of course I see there is a difference. I never said they were identical. But I tell you what - go to a court and represent a moderate smoker, say someone who smokes a pack a day. And claim harm from second hand smoke at work. I fyou don’t think their voluntary exposure to the harmful elements of tobacco smoke is going to be a major, if not determinative factor in a decision, well, let’s just leave it at you’d be wrong.
Yes - I admitted I don’t have numbers on this. Do you think I am wrong? Do you think that my observation that barstaff tend to smoke in a higher proportion than the population as a whole is incorrect?
[QUOTE=Jackmannii]
If you go back and look at the history of laws enacted to protect workers, from child labor laws to various health and safety regulations, you will find plenty of dire warnings about how jobs were being jeopardized, wages lost etc., and an amazingly high percentage of these false alarms came from the businesses that stood to lose (or thought they would lose) profits./QUOTE]
Thanks for the labor history lecture. Of course, it was stuff I had learned in the past, but it never helps to be reminded about these things. Not sure on the relevance of it as I at no stage made any argument that there would be any jobs jeopardized, wages lost etc. But as I said, it is always good to be reminded of things we learned at university.
It is also interesting you see the continuation of a small minority of bars where people voluntarily enter in the knowledge that there will be cigarette smoke, run by people who want to run a smoking bar, and staffed by people who have made the choice to work in a smoking bar rather than the majority of bars which ban smoking, and who may well smoke themselves, as the equivalent of children working in textile factories or miners being exposed to firedamp. I can’t think why anyone who wanted to work in a smoking bar might find your attitude incredibly patronizing.
It’s a workers’ rights issue if people are forced to work in an unsafe environment. If people choose to accept a certain degree of risk, it isn’t. I’m not trying to make it a workers’ rights matter - while there is an element of that invovled, that aspect is being coopted by a bunch of people who couldn’t care less about workers’ rights in general.
How can I get through to someone with your mindset, where protection against secondhand smoke is just an annoying governmental interference with your life and not a reasonable response to a well-characterized health threat?
Can you picture how relatives of the nearly 50,000 Americans estimated to die annually from the effects of secondhand smoke (see the Surgeon General’s report) might find your offhand dismissals more than patronizing? Are you another of the Flat Earthers on this subject? Do you believe that vast amounts of research data can be waved away on the basis of your convenience? Is there a fundamental difference, some vast gulf between bar and restaurant workers and workers in other occupations in regard to whether health and safety regulations are applicable? Please explain what this difference is, and how it applies to voluntarily waiving one’s right to a safe workplace (seeing as how this principle is not permitted in other lines of work).
Smokers in Ohio can still establish a club, staff it themselves and puff away all they like. If you want to make things truly voluntary, that’s the way to go.